And one far-off divine event,
To which the whole creation moves.”
“The great end of training,” says a great writer, “is liberty; and the sooner you can get a child to be a law unto himself, the sooner you will make a man of him. I will respect human liberty in the smallest child even more scrupulously than in a grown man; for the latter can defend it against me, while the child cannot. Never will I insult the child so far as to regard him as material to be cast into a mold, to emerge with the stamp given by my will.”
DUTY BEGINS IN THE HOME
Duty embraces our whole existence. It begins in the home where there is duty which children owe to their parents on the one hand, and duty which parents owe to their children on the other. There are in like manner, the respective duties of husband and wife, of employer and employee; while outside the home there are the duties which men and women owe to each other as friends and neighbors.
May it be borne in mind that the first seven years of training, in a child’s life, is of such importance as to leave its impress on the character throughout all the coming years. Lyman Abbott says: “Training is the production of habit. Actions oft repeated become a habit; habit long continued becomes a second nature.”
If gentleness and kindliness born of love is given to the child, at the same time forgetting not that kind firmness which guides the child’s life aright; demanding and exacting an immediate and implicit obedience to your instructions and directions, using whatever patience and firmness may be necessary to compel such obedience—then has the parent, and only then, accomplished that beginning and foundation of character building which will send their children forth to bless the world, and crown you with glory.
REVERENCE AND RESPECT
“Life is the wonder of wonders.” We can neither create it nor can we comprehend its mystery. From the sun worshiper of the East to the red man of the West, from the philosopher to the child there is in him that natural inclination to bow with reverence to that all majestic, all powerful source of this which we call life. “The greatest harm one may do in life is to destroy it.”
The child has a natural tendency toward destruction, which we often see illustrated in the youth whose chief pleasure is obtained by pulling up the wild flowers and shrubs. He says, “they do not suffer.” Possibly not, but they have been a means used to decorate and beautify the earth. To destroy them for amusement is an insult to the great Creator, and is also hardening his own heart. He will not long be satisfied to trample upon the rose or crush the lily, but will want to torture living things that will cry out with pain. When he has robbed the bird’s nest, mutilated the toad and tied the tin can to the dog’s tail, he will then turn to his fellowman to satiate his cultivated taste for cruelty. The attack upon the flowers was only the preliminary act to destroy his sympathy, love and pity. He has forgotten the law, “Thou shalt not kill.”